


if I could never give you peace

by Azdaema



Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Multi, Sobriety, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27600122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azdaema/pseuds/Azdaema
Summary: Lying abed with Caye and Polo, Valerio thinks about Lu.
Relationships: Leopoldo "Polo" Benavent Villada/Cayetana Grajera Pando/Valerio Montesinos Rojas, Lucrecia "Lu" Montesinos Hendrich/Valerio Montesinos Rojas
Comments: 13
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

Lying abed with Polo and Caye, half-asleep, Valerio feels a sort of languorous contentment. It's a new feeling.

With Lu, _this_ was the moment when the enormity of his passion for her would descend upon him. It would constrict in his heart; feel so heavy in his lungs that it threatened to suffocate him. Valerio wanted her so ravenously that it could never be sated. He would lie beside her, sweaty and exhausted, and it _still wasn't enough_. He just wanted to be subsumed.

With Caye and Polo, there's a peace that follows. It feels like _enough_.

(Who the hell knew that was a thing that could happen?)

Lu always gave herself to him in strict rations. Always limited, always controlled. That was Lu's way— _everything_ needed to be controlled, most of all herself. It took him a long time to understand why she ironed her hair pin-straight every morning, why she applied such heavy makeup. It wasn't a matter of beauty. (God, she was beautiful when she was unadorned.) It was an attempt to curate herself, and the maelstrom inside.

He won't pretend it's not gratifying, how unabashed Polo and Caye are in their affection for him.

Don't tell Polo, but Valerio is not actually sure he's bi—at least, not in the _same way_ that Polo is, anyways. He's not physically drawn to males in a way that feels like compulsion. And honestly? That's a _relief_. He's glad not to have that magnetic pull dominating his life. He tried fucking a guy because it seemed like all the other boys at his school were doing it. It's… well, it's _different_. Having sex with girls is weird, because he's always thinking of Lu and it never measures up. (Sorry, Rebe.) Sex with guys is different; it can stand on its own. And he _does_ enjoy it, even if he doesn't crave it per se. All he really wants is attention and dopamine, so, y'know, it seems to be a reasonably good strategy for the time being.

He chooses Polo and Caye because he likes them; because they get along well; because they make him happy. And the choosing feels like a _choice_ , not inevitability.

They have a future. They have London. Caye is even pretty sure Polo's parents are gonna come around, if they give it some time. "It's gonna be fine," Caye assures them. "We just need to have Val meet your moms in a better context. Show them he's a quality person, a good boyfriend, not just, you know…"

"…a naked hooligan fucking their son in a pool?"

"Yes, precisely!"

With Polo and Caye, they flirt and laugh and dance, and it's _light_. He's fond of them in a way that doesn't feel like crushing weight in his heart and lungs. They don't consume all of him; he was room leftover for just _being_.


	2. Chapter 2

It's odd, standing at Polo's funeral and watching Caye and _Carla_ play the mourning widows. By rights, that should be him at Caye's side, teary and dressed in formal black. If they wanted to prove Polo's moms wrong—show them that this had been a _relationship_ , not just an orgy—today is the ideal opportunity, the _last_ opportunity, to do so. Hold Caye's hand; be the second grieving ex weeping at their son's grave.

Valerio doesn't.

He's glad Caye has someone at her side today, and he's also glad it doesn't have to be him. He's barely spoke two words to Caye since Polo fell. It's over, and they both know it. Theirs was always a precarious, carefully balanced triangle, and without Polo there's no synergy to bind it together.

Carla, though, Carla loved Polo—actually loved him. Certainly more the Valerio did, and probably more than Caye did. And Polo responded in kind. Polo, who dropped his boyfriend and girlfriend in an instant—was willing to burn their relationship to the ground—to take care of Carla.

And Valerio, who would forget his girlfriend and his boyfriend's not-yet-cold corpse to take care of Lu. At least he and Polo were on the same page; the "I still love my ex" page. It keeps Valerio from feeling _too_ guilty about not having done better by the dead boy.

He is going to miss Polo though. What they had wasn't love. _Donde hay amor, hay dolor._ It was something softer, something lighter, and yes, more fragile. But he'd liked it. He hadn't feared he might get ground to death under the weight of it.

Joy, maybe.


	3. Chapter 3

The night after the graduation party, Lu and Valerio don't actually hook up. There's something oddly chaste about trauma.

But it's a near thing. He holds her as they sleep, and the imprint of her is stamped into his mind as she flies off to university.

He's reminded of something a childhood neighbor once told him about quitting smoking: "I wanted a cigarette every moment of every day for the first year."

...yeah, that's about accurate.

And so, a month after Lu leaves, he checks himself into rehab.

Call him a romantic, but he's always liked to think of Lu as distinct from his other additions. Yet he _knows_ what addiction feels like in the body, and what cravings feel like. He’s googled this shit, and the internet is more than happy to tell him how the brain in love is much like chemical addition. It makes the reptilian core of the brain spray dopamine all over.

Lu has always been his drug of choice. The others were just replacements. She was his original addition.

_(“Don't kiss your sister, kids! It's a gateway drug to cocaine!”)_

In rehab they talk a lot about "taking responsibly." He thinks of every time he reminded Lu that she was the one that kissed him first, as if he hadn't responded eagerly. He set the stage, every step of the way, then handed her the lighter to absolve himself of responsibly.

He's been playing with his neurochemistry long before he turned to substances, even before he fell for Lu—as long as he can remember, really. "Hedonist" was never the most accurate word for him. It wasn't _pleasure_ he sought so much as _intensity of sensation_. He was eight years old, and obsessed with roller coasters. He was ten years old, cannonballing into a freezing lake. Were these things actually _enjoyable_ , in any traditional sense of the word? Or did he just want to be flooded with adrenaline, left gasping?

He gets a dog. A shaggy mutt, part Catalan Sheepdog, part unclear. He names him Oso.

He takes Osito on long walks in the afternoon. They watch the sky, and feel the wind, and when he calls, "Osito!" he comes running to him, and licks Valerio's face until he's laughing, and has to wrestle Osito down. The dog is a good teacher. Valerio is still restless and easily bored, but he's getting there, he thinks. He's starting to learn how to enjoy things that don't flood his neurochemistry.

He buys a guitar. He sits on the fire escape and plays it, following the teachings of youtube videos, until his neighbor—a Cuban man in his late 60s—can no longer stand hearing Valerio make such egregious mistakes. He comes over, and starts teaching him to play the guitar properly.

Señor Montalván is a good teacher too. "It's your generation," he scolds good-naturedly. "You and your smartphones!" Valerio laughs, and looks at Señor Montalván's old flip-phone. That night, Valerio deletes most of his apps. The only ones he really needs are WhatsApp and Cabify. Being able to watch all those BASE jumping videos anytime he wants to probably isn't good for him.

But Valerio has still never entered a pool in any way other than jumping in. The noise, the splash, the slap of the water. Sinking down in a swirl of bubbles. The weightless calm under the water, the quiet. Emerging again, shaking water out of his hair like a dog, flushed and laughing and thrumming with adrenaline.

It's not addictive. It doesn't escalate, making him need more and more. Jumping into a pool is as good the hundredth time as it was the first.

And so this he keeps.


End file.
